The Sunshine Empire

As I am packing for the west coast, I had a thought looking back at a conversation I had.  I was talking to a conservative friend of mine and he repeated a solid conservative talking point on global warming.  Many conservatives I trust have almost a dogmatic view that global warming is a myth purportedly foisted on the American public.  I am not taking a stand for or against this position, I’m just stating that the view seems fairly consistent that man could not possibly hope to think he is having so much of an effect on the earth as is claimed by Al Gore and his foot soldiers.  That such a small force could effect something so large.  Yet without taking any merit from the argument, I find it outside the logic of another seemingly deep belief of conservatives.  Most of them seem to view a relatively small force, such as Al-Qaeda, as being a hairs breadth away from toppling all the west’s major government’s tomorrow afternoon.  Granted as the organization was tragically effective on one Tuesday afternoon, they are far from overthrowing the United States Government.  I know the, “new media” as they call themselves, calls that view “pre-9/11″ and I am by no means saying that there is no terrorist threat to American lives.  I just find the logic of the two positions as a bit antithetical.  In one case the small effect cannot possibly change the fundamental nature of such a large system, but we can expect a caliphate in the states by next Christmas.

I have to spend most of my day tomorrow flying, and I’m going to listen to two books on tape.  The first is The World Is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman.  My Dad seemed to have liked it so I’ll give it a try.  I also have Al Gore’s The Assault On Reason.  I am also currently reading the print edition of Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72 by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.  This better keep my attention, or I am fucked.  I have no problem flying, I just have a problem sitting down for that long.  Lucky for me they serve liquor on airplanes.